Kowarekake no Orgel

Before I proceed, it’s worth stating that I will briefly detail the story line in order to address what I liked about this OVA. However, I don’t believe, in account of the length, that knowing any of the following will detract from your enjoyment.

To start off, had it not been for AJ’s (AngryJellyfish) review above, it’s unlikely that I would have seen this at all; or at the very least, not in the foreseeable future. In fact, I wasn’t even aware that it existed. After doing some quick research, I came to learn that it was entirely self-published by an artist under the handle of ‘Pop‘, known for his character design for the anime series Moetan.

From the outset, I was pleasantly surprised by the production. The animation is crisp and detailed, particularly the terrain and background artwork. The character design is not especially original, but is pleasing to the eye. I can’t seem to remember the soundtrack too well, although it must have served its purpose. The voice cast, consisting primarily of Keiichiro and Flower, played their respective roles reasonably well. All in all, the production was above average, which you’d expect from an OVA, not restrained by length, but when you consider that this was self-published, it’s very impressive.

Although the premise is identical to the anime and manga series Chobits (young teenage boy living alone encounters an abandoned female robot), the story-line is somewhat different. Despite the OVA’s running time of little under half an hour, we received a believable and touching relationship between a young teenage boy, recovering from the loss of his immediate family and trying to rekindle his love for music, with an abandoned robot that’s on her last lease of life, gaining short-lived happiness with her new owner. Similar to the concept of ‘Chobits’, the robots in this OVA are commonplace in society and serve to aid their owner with everyday chores. What I liked about their relationship, in particular, was how subtle their interactions were and how they both acquired a glimmer of hope through their encounter. The ending, while bittersweet, was satisfactory.

Everything from the animation to the scripting was executed well, in spite of the short running length. The background artwork was especially well done. With this in mind, I was contemplating giving this 4/5, but decided that more development would be needed, which could have been established were the OVA a tad longer (closer to the hour mark).